


Caught in Cables

by MeanQueen



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Humor Angst and eventual Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, ZADF, ZaDr, Zim has a thing for Dib's height and Dib has a thing for Zim's voice, Zim's technology turns against him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-05 13:42:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20489798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeanQueen/pseuds/MeanQueen
Summary: Dib was so sure Zim's fear had been a trick, and for that he paid the price. Now, ten years later, he finds the irken invader again and unintentionally rescues him from his own technology.And what does Zim do for Dib as thanks? Make his life hell some more.





	1. Red-Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Beta-Reader so I'd love if you pointed my spelling/grammar mistakes out so I can fix them ♡

The last time Dib saw Zim the little irken seemed frightened.

Zim’s fright wasn’t _ incredibly _rare. It usually resulted in him shrieking accusations and scampering around trying to fix his mistakes or Dib’s meddling. Meanwhile Dib would try to use Zim’s often short-lived panic to foil the rest of his already-going-sideways plans.

Neither of these things happened that last time Dib saw Zim.

Instead the irken was curled in a trembling ball. Both his typically running mouth and bulging magenta eyes were squeezed shut. His antennae laid flat against his scalp.

Dib found him hiding in a dark and otherwise almost empty snack cupboard in the irken’s kitchen.

Zim had merely squeaked and curled even tighter when found.

Dib was sure it was a trick.

Whatever he’d said at the time—Dib couldn’t remember—Zim hadn’t responded. Zim hadn’t moved. Zim hadn’t even fought back when Dib dragged the small alien out of the cupboard. Or out of the kitchen by his ankles. Or past the computer with its dim red screen and a loading bar that was frozen on forty-nine percent. Or out of Zim’s strange and skinny home, past the red-eyed, eerily still guardian garden gnomes and onto the sidewalk.

It was night and the neighborhood was dimmer than usual. The sky was overcast, only allowing a few little patches of stars to bleed through. From every electric lightsource in sight a faint red glow was being emitted.

Dib had first noticed something was wrong about ten minutes ago. A powersurge caused sparks to fly from where his cables plugged into his laptop and bedside lamp. Moments later, alongside Gaz’s furious howl, his screen and the lamp’s bulb both turned red.

He’d tried to rush down the stairs, already intent on confronting Zim, but almost collided with his sister. She was clenching her gameslave with white knuckles. Even though the handheld device was battery-charged, it too was corrupted by whatever it was Zim had done.

After a threat of violence from Gaz and a terrified promise of fixing everything from Dib, the boy was charging down the street towards Zim’s home. It was while he was charging back with Zim in tow that he lost the alien for the final time.

The robotic limb that stepped onto the sidewalk in front of Dib was similar to the spidery legs that sometimes extended from Zim’s PAK. Except instead of a muted purple, these legs were a steely white, and when Dib looked up he saw them extending out of the open head of GIR.

GIR with red eyes.

GIR on Duty Mode.

Dib didn’t know how scared of that little robot in Duty Mode he should have been. He merely scoffed and swerved around the limb, only to be blocked by the swift jab of another. The jab had cracked the concrete right in front of him. When Dib tried again, the results were the same.

At this point Dib was irritated. And confused about Zim.

The alien was had finally gotten up, kicking his feet from Dib’s hands. Instead of running, he clung to the collar of Dib’s shirt and buried his trembling green face in it, which Dib didn’t appreciate. But if he wanted to get him to his house and interrogate him, this was better than him fighting back, he supposed.

However, trying to get home with GIR repeatedly trying to block his path would take foreveeeer. Even though Zim was small and light, twelve-year-old Dib wasn’t so very heavy himself and had been getting really tired of dragging Zim. He was also already tired of being used as something to hide against. So Dib shouted something up at the robot. He couldn’t remember exactly but it was probably something like, “What gives?!”

GIR hadn’t said anything. Instead his red eyes narrowed. His fourth long, sharp limb raised slowly like that of a praying mantis, and that’s when Dib’s stomach did a flip. He’d heard from a slip of Zim’s tongue one time that it was for the best that GIR couldn’t remain in Duty Mode for more than a few seconds.

He finally understood why when GIR’s robotic leg struck.

Professor Membrane slept through the night soundly and woke up at the same time as he always did: exactly five seconds before his alarm would go off. But it didn’t. He discovered his entire household was quiet, besides Clembrane’s pitchy pudding songs and his daughter’s grumbling. But where was his son?

It was a good thing he loved to find answers to questions. He decided a walk around the neighborhood looking for the boy might do him good while the power outage was being sorted out.

He found Dib unconscious, alone, and only barely clinging to life. His blood had dried in the cracks in the cement street.

In those terrible minutes before Professor Membrane got Dib to his medical lab and started up his homemade incredibly-advanced backup generator, which freed the house of its red uselessness, the scientist located a round clean hole that went clear through his son.

Dib had been impaled.

A week passed before Dib was allowed to leave his medically-inducing healing coma. Then another few weeks passed before Membrane allowed either of his children to leave the house without a few of his highly trained assistant scientists to bodyguard them. Then a month passed. Then three. Then a year. Then ten.

Dib changed.

Of course, ten years would change anyone, but a few of Dib’s changes were direct results of his final encounter with Zim and GIR.

Dib lost track of the alien for the longest time he ever had. Having learned his lesson waiting for Zim’s reappearance shortly before the Florpus incident, Dib did his best to let his life resume like normal. Once the rest of the world did first, that is.

Whatever Zim did to the electronics of Dib’s neighborhood, he apparently did to the whole world. Softly glowing redness replaced every light and screen on Earth, and even the space stations that circled the planet. Everything stopped functioning. Riots started. Hospitals were closed. _ People died _and they _ kept _dying. The unusual blackout—or red-out—lasted for a month.

Dib spent a lot of that month trying to end the red-out, but ultimately he had no idea what broke all the electronics in the world free of their strange behavior. Zim’s home was empty every time he dropped by. It quickly became evident that the alien had abandoned it. He never saw him, GIR, the Voot Cruiser, Minimoose or any of Zim’s other assistants and creations during his investigations there. Only the computer with it’s frozen loading bar.

The day after the red-out ended, when Dib kicked down Zim’s door with a triumphant, “Aha!” he saw that the computer was gone too.

Dib had no leads, and no choice but to move on… unless he wanted to obsessively watch Zim’s house and become fused to his chair again.

He went back to school when it resumed. He focused on his other paranormal interests, but never managed to find that same passion for exposing any of them as he did with the green alien. He grew.

The night after Dib graduated highschool, he told his dad he wanted to be a scientist and work at his father’s lab, which thrilled the scientist. It wasn’t true though. Dib didn’t want… anything. He was pretty sure he was depressed, but he didn’t know how to talk to his dad about it, and he figured Gaz would just tell him to shut up.

The night after Gaz graduated highschool the very next year, Clembrane finally expired. They found him in the kitchen, his molecules unraveling. Foodio 3000 kept trying to wake him up by creating different flavors of extra-nutritious pudding for him, but the clone was dead. By this point everyone but Gaz had become fond of the ugly creature, and everyone but Gaz considered this a great loss. She declared it the best thing graduation-reward she could ask for.

Aside from the death of Clembrane, life in the Membrane family went on as normally as one could consider it to be.

✭ ✭ ✭

“Why am I here...”

The narrow, puzzle-piece looking house which was once Zim’s base didn’t answer Dib. It was dilapidated now, the green planes having shifted so he could see the rusted metal cables inside. Only half a laser-eyed garden gnome remained and it was being overtaken by the lawn’s long grass and weeds.

Dib reluctantly stepped past the gnome. He pushed open the door and was greeted with the scents of dust and mildew.

Plants had started to grow up through the floor. The couch was moldy and had collapsed in on itself. It looked like all the pictures and books and other tiny things in the house had been taken a long time ago by other people who broke in.

“Still gone, eh?”

He tilted his head back to look at the thick web of wires and cables that made up the ceiling and fed into what used to be the computer’s memory unit, but now they were just plugged into nothing. Those cables were what had drawn him here.

Earlier that morning Dib had been looking around his new home. It was a small cabin on a woodsy hillside just outside of town. There in the thick trees he could indulge in his old hobbies of cryptid hunting, but he was still close enough to the Membrane Labs that he could see it from his back porch.

That’s when he saw it in his new home. He’d laid on the sterile white floor of his equipment cluttered new lab, staring at them. Cords, cables and wires interlaced sloppily on the ceiling. His father’s assistants had installed them. They reminded him of the far clunkier, purple-twinged cables that made up many of the walls and ceilings in his old irken foe’s home.

He hadn’t seen anything like it in years. Now he was seeing two similar looking sets in one day.

But something… was off about these cables in Zim’s home base.

They were all unpowered, except one.

Red lights glowed from it every few feet and he could see steady pulsing surges of power were passing through them.

Dib followed the wire, his heart climbing in his chest. It disappeared behind the moldy couch which he was quick to shove aside with the vigor of young Dib during a stop-Zim-from-destroying-the-Earth mission.

There on the floor was a couch-sized glass surface. An elevator tube curled down into darkness beyond that glass pane.

Dib could feel his heart pounding right between his ears, dizzying him. This elevator was... intact. Maybe he could even get it to work.

Zim had all sorts of elevators in his base that lead down to the subterranean levels where most of his more alien spaces were. The main elevator was in the toilet, but Dib had discovered elevators in the pantry, fridge, both in and under the sink, and even one in the chimney. But ever since the strange red-out, every elevator tube Dib knew of was crushed like a discarded soda can. Even if the computer was present, working and compliant, there was no way it could let him down into the underground irken maze.

Even though this elevator still existed, it couldn’t be used.

But he wasn’t going to give up.

Dib, now an adult of twenty two, caved and listened to his sensible side which needed a few hours to prepare. Among other things, he filled a hefty hiking backpack full of rations in case his exploration would be a long one, and left a note in his new house explaining where to find him should he be missing long enough for his family to come check on him.

When he returned to Zim’s house, he put a harness around his waist and hips, tied one end of his loooong climbing rope around the toilet, smashed the elevator’s glass floor with a wrench and let the rest of the rope fall into the darkness. Then he began his descent, bouncing down the walls of the curving glass tube elevator shaft.

It wasn’t long before the headlamp he wore showed a spherical doorway, though the elevator shaft itself continued past it.

Dib stopped and peered into the room.

Like many of the rooms Dib had been in before, this large circular room probably served a singular purpose. It had several large screens suspended from the curved ceiling and walls. Every screen emitted that soft red glow like that which dominated every screen during the red-out. It was otherwise barren so Dib couldn’t tell if this room was receiving any use. But it being powered at all gave Dib a very confusing twinge of hope.

But why?

Besides being impaled while it was happening, Zim vanishing was one one of the best things that ever happened to Dib… he thought. Sure, he didn’t get a chance to expose Zim to the world, but at least his life calmed down a great deal afterwards.

Even though that made Dib very depressed. But that might have happened anyways? Maybe he was just genetically inclined? Y-Yeah…

Seeing no other doorways inside the room to examine, Dib continued his descent. It was a lot of work, but the adrenaline coursing through Dib’s blood was keeping his grip on the rope strong.

The next room had a vat of light pink goo being mixed by robotic whisks. The air smelled sweet. The room only about thirty feet below that had tubes running from the ceiling to Dib-sized glass containers of more of that liquid. It kind of looked like irken blood, or what little of it he’d seen before anyways. Then he spotted large temperature-regulating cases along the walls, all full of small plastic pouches of the stuff. Those pouches looked almost exactly like blood bags. He doubted Zim would ever need so many transfusions in his entire life.

The elevator split and Dib ended up having to trust the direction the rope had fallen even though he could see doors waiting on the other side of the fork. But he ran into more on his side too. Every few rooms the elevator shaft would split again and again. He was running out of rope but still hadn’t seen enough evidence that this base was still lived in. Yes, the machines that ran the place were still going after ten years, but he didn’t know how long an irken base was designed to run without its master present. Considering how many ingenious creations Zim made but then didn’t have the wisdom to effectively use against the Earth, Dib wouldn’t be surprised if their machines could last a _ hundred _years.

When Dib saw the end of the rope dangling about fifteen feet below him the distraught, “No!” that escaped his lips startled him. He clapped both hands—his harness kept him where he was—over his eyes and dragged them down his face in disappointment.

Again, he felt a little guilty for being so disappointed that the greatest source of conflict in his life still wasn’t proven to be around, but he couldn’t help it. He was a cryptid hunter _ and _the son of Earth’s greatest scientist. He didn’t like not having answers.

That’s when he noticed the little doorway right by the last foot of rope. He could have easily missed it. It blended in with the rest of the darkness of this elevator shaft. Unlike all the other rooms he passed, this one must not have been well-lit from inside.

His expectations were low as he bounced the rest of the way down to the room to peer inside.

The beam of light passed over many cables that completely obscured the walls and floors. They made the room seem like it had an unusual shape. It was long and curved like a bean, and much of the room was obscured from his view by the mess.

“Hmm.” Did he dare risk entering one of these rooms? What if he set off some kind of alarm? And would it even matter if he did?

Dib slid all the way to the end of the rope until his harness slipped free then jumped though the doorway.

Aside from the _ tmp _ of his boots landing against the wire-strewn floor, he heard nothing… no, wait. He did hear _ something _. It was very quiet, but somewhere in this room was steady beeping and a soft whirr, similar to the sound an old laptop fan might make when overheating.

Dib reached up to turn off his headlamp. The wires in this room were emitting a soft red glow that allowed him some vision. Even though he’d prefer to see everything, he couldn’t risk his headlamp giving his location away.

He trod very carefully into the room, moving around large cables to peer into all the nooks and crannies. Most just lead to short, narrow halls that lead to nowhere but more wires, or fuse-box like things.

When Dib followed the curve of the room, he finally saw something interesting. No no, “interesting” was an understatement. Dib was immediately_ fucking manic. _

Not only was it proof that Zim was still on the planet…

It _ was _Zim.

Dib saw but barely registered the processing unit and large red screen of the computer. Ah, so _here's_ where it has been moved. Just like on the day of the red-out, there was a loading bar. It ticked up from forty three percent to forty four percent before his eyes, but didn’t move at all aside from that.

Just a few feet in front of the computer was a long cylindrical tube. It was maybe three feet in circumference and twice as tall as Dib, who was now on the taller side for an adult human male. It was filled with a watered-down—but maybe not with water, considering the irken’s weakness towards it—version of that pinkish liquid he’d seen a few rooms up. Held in place midway up the tube by clear narrow tubes and metal wires was Zim.

He was unconscious though he occasionally twitched while Dib stared dumbstruck.

Unlike the uniform Dib always saw him in, the alien wore something that looked almost exactly like a hospital gown but pink. Possibly dyed by the liquid. His PAK was detached by a few inches, but not so much that its two metal spikes weren’t still connected to his spine. Most of the tubes and wires fed into Zim through the two holes in his back. Others entered his mouth and… whatever lowerbody orifices he had. Dib didn’t really want to look too hard at those ones but felt a spiteful glee that irkens also suffered things like catheters. Finally, the biggest wire of all, as thick as Dibs neck, lead from the computer itself to Zim’s PAK.

“I.... freakin’ KNEW IT!” Dib shrieked as he fistpumped and spun enthusiastically in the air. “I KNEW IT! I KNEW YOU HADN’T LEFT!” He clapped his hands harshly over his face and pinched himself through his laughter, just to make sure he wasn’t seeing what he wanted to see. “YOUR PLAN’S BEEN FOILED NOW Y-you! Alien scum! Ahh…”

Zim continued floating.

Dib and the alien both remained motionless for the next ten seconds until one of Zim’s thin pointed fingers twitched.

“What kinda evil plan even _ is _this?!” Dib demanded and stepped closer to bang on the glass a few times with his fist. “Huh?! How are you supposed to conquer the planet if you’re in a jar? This isn’t very climactic.”

Another twitch.

“Okay I’ve had enough.” Dib fished his wrench back out of his backpack. “I’m taking you back to… my lab! Yep: _ My _lab, because I now have a lab all to myself which I can dedicate to freaks like you, Zim.”

He raised the wrench and became aware of how much his arm was trembling. Then _ CRASH _the glass was broken and all that pink liquid came splashing out!

In moments the wires around Dib were sparking as they short circuited.

He_ “Ah! Ah! Ah!”_d as he jumped around trying to avoid the stinging jolts.

Zim fell almost a foot with no pink test tube sludge to ease gravity’s hold on him. A few of the cords connected to the alien came loose and started spurting more pink goo, but the rest caught him and kept him suspended.

Luckily Dib was now six foot one and could reach the alien. He loosed him from the cables and wires, gently even though Zim deserved no such thing. Then he stepped back with his unconscious foe like a toy in his arms.

Zim was a_ great deal _smaller than Dib now. He was somewhere between three and four feet tall, probably closer to three, and lighter than a human that height should be. But aside from him seeming smaller because of Dib’s new size, the irken was exactly like Dib remembered. In fact, he seemed to be in peak condition. His skin was bright and smooth and even kind of soft. His breathing was steady. There was a distinct lack of dark eyebags which Zim had sported all the time in the good old days.

Dib turned him over to inspect the slightly displaced PAK, but saw that it was now where it always was before. Uh oh. What if he woke up now?

He glanced around, as if ambush were hiding behind some of the thick cables in this eerie place, and then scampered back to his rope. What Dib didn’t notice as he dashed off was how the computer ticked up one loading percent to forty five percent before immediately flashing an error code.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did verryyy little research outside watching Enter The Florpus itself, so it might be inaccurate!  
Edit: no longer true for any chapter following this one, i researched like mad 🤘


	2. Zim Wakes Up

Zim's _ gloooorious _ head… it hurt.

The invader shifted, attempting to gather up more of the soft fabric that covered him, but couldn't. He faced opposition from his wrists—no. Something around them.

The irken cracked open one magenta eye to glare at this wrist-opposing force and saw a metal shackle. Odd. That didn't look like one of his. He turned to look at his other wrist and saw another one.

Then he noticed with his noticing eyes that this entire room wasn't his. It was bright, the majority of the textures were smooth and white, and it all reeked of _ human filth! _On the counters were microscopes, keyboards, screens displaying all kinds of information, chemistry sets, and pointy tools of potential torture. There was a rack across the room on which hung a long hideous white lab coat much like the one belonging to the parental entity of the Dib-creature.

Zim was beginning to connect the dots. The foul _ foul _dots.

"DIB-HUMAN!" he yelled. "I command you to release Zim AT ONCE!"

Nothing. No noises. The only thing Zim heard was his own impatient breathing.

He repeated even louder: "AT ** _ONCE!"_ **

When the quiet in the ugly human lab persisted Zim started to wonder if he was alone.

He pulled against his restraints, noticing that his ankles were also shackled. He huffed and puffed in his rising escape effort. When that turned out to be useless he tried to extend his PAK legs, but they immediately clunked into more metal.

Zim glared down at the surface he was on.

He was on an island counter restrained on a large metal sheet. A fleecy blanket was draped over him, but he could still tell that the metal sheet had some kind of bowl right where Zim's PAK was, most likely designed to render it useless

Kind of… slightly... clever-ish for the human worm.

Oh, or it wasn't his idea! That made more sense. Zim wouldn't be too surprised to hear of a few accidental strokes of genius from the worm's guardian, considering this was the parent-of-Dib's lab. Zim has been impressed by the adult's creations before, not that he would _ ever _ express any awe towards a lowly human. Had the young earthling finally managed to convince the older earthling of Zim's non-earthlingness?

Seemed doubtful.

That's when Zim heard an electric hum and quick whooshing of an electric door opening and closing behind him.

Zim growled under his breath and prepared his excuse: that he and the Dib were playing alien pretendly pretending games and of course that rotten Dib took it too far. The Fathering-Unit would then release him like he always did.

After a few rubbery sounding footsteps, the tall human was looming over the alien. His long black bolt of hair seemed a little off and his glasses were clearer than usual, allowing Zim to finally see his very Dib-like brown eyes.

Zim had to resist the urge to revere the tall human, despite his humanness. Especially after so-effectively undoing his ingeeennniouus plaaaan of teleporting the planet into the armada's path. Tall _ and _smart. But no, only irkens were worth reverence and every other lifeform in the galaxy sucked.

Zim and the Membrane both flinched as they realized their staring contest.

The human spoke first with a voice that caught Zim off guard. It was deep, yes, but not as deep as usual. Perhaps the human was sick? "I, um, wasn't expecting you to be awake so soon.”

“Awake I am, human! Now release! Free!”

“Can’t do that, _ buddy_.”

“You must! My own parental-units will be getting worried by now. I will miss the dinner if your child-thing’s game persists. Freedom for Zim.”

The professor raised an eyebrow.

"Oh great," Zim hissed as it hit him, "The Dib-thing must have already attempted some loony. RELEASE the incredible ** _ZIIIM_ ** and SPEAK of your child-creature's _ meddling!... _ Eh, please..." Adults. They always wanted their pleases. Asking undeserving humans for things nicely practically burned Zim's tongue, but he didn't want to waste the time the human might take being upset over the lack of a politeness.

The human was still staring, and his jaw had fallen slack. "You think… that I'm my dad?!"

"Has the crazed one confused you too, Unfortunate-Parent-of-him? I would expect you to be used to his dizzying loserness by now. But, I suppose being confusing is the one thing he's good at."

"Zim!" The human gestured at himself frantically, "_I'm _ Dib!"

Zim's eyes narrowed. "Nooo, Dib is short."

"Twelve year old Dib, sure, but it's been ten years!"

"Nonsensssse!" Zim started pulling on the restraints more, but his mind was roaming freely. First, he concluded, yes this really was the Dib-dookie. But he was cloaked in some kind of elaborate hologram or disguise. A scare tactic, perhaps. Then, he realized as he stopped pulling on his restraints and his eyes widened, he didn't remember how he got here.

The last thing he did remember was… something that scared him. Something that really scared him.

✭ ✭ ✭

Dib watched as Zim grew very still.

The defender of earth was too busy grappling with his own mental battles to care much, but he did lean forward to poke Zim's squishy cheek.

It didn't evoke any reaction from the alien. At least he was still breathing though.

"Hmmf…" Dib rolled up a chair and plopped down in it, dropping his chin into one hand.

So Zim might not have been conscious _ at all _ in ten years, based on his disbelief that Dib could grow so much. What the hell was his plan for conquering the earth if he wasn't anticipating time passing?

The irken finally exhaled a low, shaky breath, and using it asked, "Where is GIR?"

Dib felt a twinge on his torso, right between his left lung and his spine. That's where GIR pierced him, nearly killing him that dreadful first day of the red-out. "I dunno."

"You. Don't. _ Know?!" _

Dib tried to seem nonchalant when he shrugged. "Haven't seen him since I last saw you."

"...Well," Zim spoke with increasing quietness, "Good. That's good…"

Dib agreed, but he would never voice any agreements with Zim.

The irken suddenly shook whatever worries he had away and started twisting around again. "Release Zim."

"Can't. Gotta dissect you for the good of science, you know the drill."

Zim hissed.

Dib didn't rise from his chair, still bothered by how things had turned out. He felt like he was missing some big puzzle pieces here.

Zim was finally in his lab, helpless, and was even cursing, screaming at, and insulting him which was just asking for dissection, but… Dib wanted all the answers.

He pulled out a pen and a notepad then cleared his throat. "What was the purpose of the red-out, Zim?"

"YOU STINK-MONGREL! DEFY ZIM ANY LONGER AND YOU'LL BEG—_ YOU'LL BEEEGGG _ FOR MERCY!!"

"What went wrong? Why were you hiding in a cupboard?"

"ZIM does not HIDE BUT _ YOU'LL _ WISH YOU COULD when Zim is FREEE!"

And, uh, the nonsense went on like that for a bit. It was kind of refreshing. Dib was surprised how much he missed Zim's extreme lilts and sharp voice. He was kind of mesmerized by how many different angry expressions Zim’s face could cycle through in moments despite not having as many facial features as a human. And his eyes kind of looked like jelly. Maybe that’s why Dib had started collecting so much jelly as a teenager but never ate any. It was all still up in his pantry, gathering dust.

The alien wore himself out before long. When Dib stood up, re-clicking his pen and stowing away the still-empty notepad, Zim was panting and had closed his eyes.

"I'm not gonna dissect you today. Still too many questions I need answers for."

"P-pathetic hhhh_ worm _… Y-yhou are no… match for the mighty…" Zim's head lolled to the side. He had fought himself into unconsciousness.

Dib watched the sleeping alien for a few more minutes as he contemplated what little he'd learned.

✭ ✭ ✭

Every time Zim woke, Dib would be in the lab somewhere with a pen and notepad within reach.

The human would abandon his other experiments, find that rolling chair and hurtle himself across the room to Zim on it. The pen would be clicked—annoying noise, annoying lights on the ceiling shining right into Zim’s magnificent ocular organs, annoying human—and questions would start to spill from Dib’s horrid human mouth.

“Why were all the elevator shafts crushed but that one?” or “What was the purpose of the cables and tubes in your back?” or “Why did you move the computer down into your lab?”

It was annoying, it was incessant, and it was turning Zim’s brain to mush.

The alien always screamed and kicked and struggled until he passed out. To some degree, even though he’d prefer if his fighting was enough to free him, the passing out was intentional. He refused to give the human anything to work with and figured that if he remained conscious for long enough the human might start to torment the answers out of him. Not that he’d get much.

Zim didn’t have much to work with himself. He wasn’t sure what happened on the day his technology became frightening.

But he didn’t want the Dib to know that.

✭ ✭ ✭

Five days of this entertaining but fruitless questioning went by.

Dib watched the health fade from Zim’s features. The eyebags had returned. His bright green skin had become more muted and even a little blotchy in places. His antennae, usually so expressive sleek and shiny, were now held closer to his head and had developed a subtle crumply texture like wadded up paper. His durations of consciousness started to become less and less frequent and last less and less time. By day five he barely had the energy to raise his voice.

Dib’s questions switched to the alien’s health by the third day. Mainly, he wanted to know what to feed him.

But of course Zim lied and rasped something like, “Fooooolish huuuuman, Zim does not need to eat! Zim is… fine.”

Dib had been told a lot of things about irkens that he wasn’t sure he believed, but this one was a blatant lie. He’d seen Zim eating. He used to spy on him every day and watch the alien inhale loads of candy, potato chips, candy and… occasionally other things that kind of resembled candy. Stuff like soap, candles, and the entire contents of a family-sized shampoo bottle. He’d also seen Zim’s precious Tallest munching on junk food themselves.

Based on these observations, Dib concluded that irkens had an almost-entirely sugar and carb based diet with a side of oil-based cleanliness products. That could explain why Zim was always so hyper.

But how often did Zim need to eat? Was he starving to death?

Dib looked up from the mutated cow cells under his microscope to look at the sleeping alien. He narrowed his eyes on the faint blotch on Zim’s forehead. Then on his twitching antennae. Somewhere deep down inside him, maybe right next to the spot he’d been impaled through, Dib felt a twinge of sympathy.

Wait, what? No. No sympathy for the alien that almost destroyed the earth multiple times. Zim was a monster and Dib was here to stop him.

But Dib wanted a _ healthy _subject to dissect, not a dying one. Maybe it was time for a little experiment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully Zim's POVs were entertaining rather than annoying :'D


	3. A Tall Nemesis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zim is infuriating and Dib can't take it.

_ KLNK… P-thNmmpk. Plltpllplltpllt KLNK. Pllt. _

Grrr, all these rotten malicious noises. They sent unignorable signals along Zim’s sensitive antennae. What did they want? Were noises capable of want? Zim couldn’t remember. Let’s just go with yes, because these ones wanted to sabotage the invader’s slumber.

Just when he began to find pattern enough in the metallic clinking that sleep began to reclaim him, another kind of noise upset that balance. It was a soft and familiar sort of reverb that sent a fearful shiver down Zim’s spine when, for a moment, he thought it was GIR’s humming. But no, the sound was contained inside a living meatsource. This _ humming _ thing was big. Or at least it sounded like it had quite a lot of lungflesh to hum with.

Zim’s lungflesh was currently a bit… withery. If he concentrated he could hear its struggles in the air.

The humbeast didn’t find a simple pattern to stick with, so Zim was unable to blend it with the background clatter and return to sleep. Oh, now this creature _ definitely _ wanted the mighty Zim’s sanity to drain, but little did it _ knooow _ who it was dealing _ wiiith _.

The world wasn’t as overwhelmingly bright as the other times Zim cracked open an eye.

The first thing he realized was that he was upright this time rather than strapped to a table. His wrists or ankles weren’t restrained. Instead his small but elite irken posterior was wedged into a highchair intended to help bipedal infants eat. Kinda. It seemed to have been thrown together in a rush but it was bigger than an infant’s would have been and, based on the curved back intended to contain his PAK, it was designed specifically for him. Still, it was humiliating! He would have to do something about this.

Before him was a wooden table on which waited several small colorful mountains he didn't have the attention span to identify.

This was a lab of a different sort. A kitchen. And in this kitchen, scrubbing away at dishes and tiny metal eating tools was the source of the humming.

Oh. Human. Of course.... Of course! About two years prior, his revered Tallest had assigned _ the remarkable Zim _ on a super. Incredibly. Secret mission. One set here on earth, where filthy humans were humming all over the place. Maybe he was thinking of burping? Zim had lost track of all the body-noises these meatbags could make.

All the effort it took to look around had drained Zim.

This humming human was a specific one. This was the Dib’s parent th—wait. Wait. This was _ not _the Dib’s parent thing. Why not, again? Zim strained to remember why he thought that this tall strange-haired scientist was a different tall strange-haired scientist. But whatever, it didn't matter if Zim mixed a few humans up. They didn't deserve their individual brain spaces in Zim's superior, although currently haggard mind.

The alien’s eyes returned to the table mountains and then widened. There he saw the solution to his drowsiness: Snacks!

There were lollipops, sugar cookies and frosting-covered crackers. Chip bags of all the greasiest most savory earth flavors. Bars of chocolate. Wrappers containing taffy and caramel-chips. Grape, orange, and lemon sodas that had long since shed their daaaangerouuus perspiration—Zim could see wet rings in the table’s wood around them. There was even a large Starguts coffee with steam curling into the air.

Zim's jaw dropped open and his salivating tongue unrolled to flop down against his clothes. He reached. He reeeaaached. Damn his short arms. Even moreso: damn this infant-chair for keeping his pelvis wedged in place! He didn’t have the energy to try and wiggle out of it right now.

An ungloved and lightly tan hand picked a chocolate muffin out of the snack smorgasbord and placed it within grasp of Zim's equally ungloved claws, though he was too distracted to give that much thought.

He snatched the treat and recoiled with it into his seat-trapper-of-babies. The muffin was protectively clutched to his chest for all of half a second before he crammed it down his throat with both hands and swallowed without chewing.

Zim didn’t hear it, but the human muttered, “Attaboy. Alien. Thing,” under their breath. 

"Mhh...m—morehh…"

An orange soda can hissed as the human popped the tab and held it out to the alien.

As Zim threw his head back, he turned the soda can upside down in the air above him. He guzzling the carbonated liquid fervently while gesturing for another snack with his free hand.

✭ ✭ ✭

This time Dib opened a bag of gummies. He almost handed the alien the entire bag, but at the last minute decided to simply dump its contents onto the highchair’s tray. He didn’t doubt Zim would try to eat the plastic. But maybe there was no reason he couldn’t.

The tray was picked clean so quick Dib barely had time to jot half a note down.

"M—more..."

Dib handed him a candy bar.

“More,” Zim demanded with more strength than before.

A swirly lollipop.

“More!”

Chips. A slice of cheesecake. A half-melted slushy.

“MORE! MORE! MORE!"

Zim’s strength and health had rejuvenated right before Dib’s eyes. It was like watching a timelapse video. Every blotch on Zim’s forehead cleared and dull green skin became bright. His crinkly antennae filled back out and regained their luster. His drooping posture became strong and dynamic as he strained to reach snacks all on his own now.

Dib had fully expected Zim to recover quickly. Maybe not this quickly, but he still wasn’t too surprised. Dib had seen Zim survive a lot of horrible things. He'd also witnessed Zim's body _ doing _ a lot of horrible and _ horrifying _ things. Once Zim flooded a classroom with his own zit juice, then showed no signs of dehydration afterwards. Once Zim's flesh stretched instantly and seamlessly to house dozens of his classmates’ organs, and then shrunk back to its original size without any sign it had changed in the first place. Every time he was splashed with water, his skin would hiss and steam but never scar. His limbs had been crushed, his spine had been snapped, he'd been poisoned, but he was always unharmed when Dib next saw him.

The capabilities of irken biology used to keep Dim up at night. It also used to wake him up with nightmares. And dreams. Dreams of running experiments like this—well, no, not like _ this_; younger Dib wanted to torture, not treat—on the alien. He'd always itched to witness Zim's healing process. And now that he was witnessing it he found it absolutely _ remarkable _.

Something else remarkable, if not a little worrying, was how much Dib was enjoying the return of the alien's bizarre shrieky voice. Again.

Zim had begun to laugh maniacally between swallows and bites. His demands for specific treats were shouted with the gusto Dib was familiar with. The alien kicked impatiently in his kiddie chair when Dib didn’t immediately hand him the treat he was craving.

“STINK-mongrel, I now require the bag of GUMMY BEARS!"

"Nooope, gonna have to stop you now, Zim.”

“You CANNOT!”

“Oh, I can,” Dib smirked and used his foot to scoot Zim’s homemade highchair a few inches back from the table. “It’s out of necessity. I dunno about you, but humans vomit if they eat too much too fast." Dib wasn’t sure why he cared if Zim vomited or not. It might have been funny to see, but if he could, he just felt like he should spare him from that. Even if he was just going to be dissecting the alien later. He was the good guy after all, and the _ best _good guys had the courtesy to keep their enemies last few days suffer-free.

"Oh. Uuuuuuhhhhh." The commanding tone in Zim's voice fell away, though he never dropped his intense stare or attempts to reach for the candy he desired. "That is... exactly what I am! So very...smelly and _ stupid _ like all the other human children, but I STILL REQUIRE THE BEARS ** _OF GUM!_ **"

Dib frowned. "What?"

"**GIMME**!_” _

"No, go back, what are you talking about?”

“Gummy bears you weak-minded useless—”

Dib “Argh!”d with irritation and paced twice around the table before returning to his previous spot more coolheaded. “_I MEANT _ the human thing. I know you're not a human, Zim. Don't you remember our first conversation a few days ago?"

Zim hissed, finally looking away from the candy to scan Dib with his eyes. Then a look of realization washed over him. And then a rather devious smile.

Dib crossed his arms. "Remember who I am now?"

“Of course.” _ KrrrACK! _

Dib’s breath caught in his throat and he leapt back a few feet.

One very menacing metal leg had extended from Zim’s PAK, breaking through the wooden back of the homemade highchair, and clacked to the tiled kitchen floor. Shit, shit, shit, he should have PAK-proofed the highchair better.

"You're the sciency father of my dumb playmate, the Dib," Zim said with easily-seen-through sweetness. There was nothing genuine about it, but it probably would have still worked on the professor. Even without his wig and contacts, and with his clearly alien technology. Then Zim used his robotic leg to scoot the highchair a few inches closer to the table until he could reach every snack he wanted himself. The gorging continued without another word between the two for awhile.

Dib found himself sinking to the floor from against the fridge, unable to take his eyes off the PAK leg.

Dib counted. Nineteen minutes. It took Zim nineteen more minutes to slow his conquest of snacks.

The alien had escaped the highchair too. Now he sat cross-legged on the floor under the kitchen table, slowly drinking and commenting on the Starguts coffee he was drinking through a straw. He seemed intrigued by the drink. He kept saying its bitterness was gross but gave it character despite Dib paying for nine shots of caramel flavoring. It was probably the sweetest coffee Dib had ever bought.

The human was still recovering from the sight of that insect-like robot leg, but at least he wasn't letting it show anymore. Zim hadn't even noticed.

Zim also hadn't noticed that Dib was Dib, and referred to him as—

"So, Parent-figure, what did he do to finally convince you? I'm curious."

Dib's pen slowed to a stop against his notepad paper and he glanced up at Zim dejectedly. If this confused alien even _ vaguely _ knew how deeply sore this spot was, he'd relentlessly prod it forever for fun. He had to lie. "_I _convinced _ my dad _ with all the junk I collected from our fights."

"You?"

"Me."

"You convinced Dib-dookie's dad-thing?"

"I _ am _ Dib-doo—erm, Dib."

The invader stopped sucking on the straw and his antennae flared. He scrunched his shiny magenta eyes.

“Come on! I told you when you first woke up! You said—”

“No, you lie. The Dib is short.”

“That, you said that_, _Zim! But I _ am _Dib!” His rage was growing.

“Heheh nice try tall clone,” Zim chuckled and swished the coffee around in its cup. “The Dib is my nemesis. If you were truly him, you’d have taken advantage of my suspending metabolism and would have let me vitrify until helpless, then have futilely attempted to reveal my still-superior huskbody to the world as proof of aliens.”

“Huskbody…?”

“But no, you acted on some kind of _ pathetic _ human nurturing instinct, and that’s what sets the Dib-pig apart from the rest of you blind pigs. He still sucks frog poopie, but at least he wouldn’t be so stupid to aid THE MIGHTY ZIM, greatest threat to his woefully incompetent planet!”

In some weird way, Dib felt like he was being praised.

“Now, perhaps if your species had PAKs I could believe that you were him reprogrammed to behave… eurrghh_… _ Kindly. Towards Zim. But no, all you humans have to work with are glitchy little meatbrains.”

Now Dib had had enough. It started as a low growl in his chest that rose to an, “I’m not being kind to you, Zim. You don’t deserve kindness from anyone on earth.”

“Oooh, now _that_ sounds like something the real Dib-wedgie would say. Keep that up!”

“Oh, shut up! You’re so deep in denial you might as well be inside-out on my dissection table right now! It’s me, I’m Dib, and I ** _STILL _ **hate you!” He ran his fingers through his hair as a somewhat manic laugh cut through his trembling shout. “Th-that’s kind of a relief actually! I hate you! I really do still hate you! That’s the only thing I guess I forgot about you, Zim...”

The alien remained quiet. How rare.

Dib didn’t wait for him to say something cruel. He climbed to his feet as his heart climbed in his chest. “I shouldn’t tell you this because you will take it like some kind of win, but just let me tell you what I’ve gone through: Ignoring all other horrible injuries you’ve caused, I got impaled because of you! It was the closest I've ever come to death and it scared my family shitless! I didn't even know they could get scared, and I hated it. And then I spent the past ten years trying and failing not to obsess over you! I never forgot a _ detail _ of your face, or any of your crazy plans, or even your annoying voice!” There were many times Dib wished he had forgotten Zim's voice which made his newfound fondness for it even stranger. “But you, Zim?! You can’t even remember our most recent conversations! Ugh you’re so… so _ exactly _what I remember! And I _ hate _you for it!”

“Oh, huh,” was all Zim replied with.

Dib’s expression crumbled. “What…? _ ‘Oh, huh’ _ Is all you have to say?! Ten years have passed and _ ‘OH HUH’ _ IS ALL YOU’VE GOT?!”

“Yeah.”

Dib felt a white-hot flash of anger and exhaled it through his nostrils. He crossed his arms and leaned against the fridge, glaring at the alien.

Zim sucked the dregs of coffee up throug the straw, creating that awful gurgly sound. He continued to stare at Dib. The human couldn’t actually see any difference in his eyes whether he was looking up or down because he had no pupils or irises, but he felt like he was being given a once-or-twice-over. “Humans,” Zim finally said, “...grow fast.”

“Wait, is that why you don’t care? Is ten years nothing to you? How fast do irken grow?”

Zim hummed into his now-empty coffee cup and tossed it over his head, where he’d been tossing much of the wrappers and cans he finished. “Do _ NOT _ ask for the secrets of my superior _ specieees!” _

“You brought it up!”

“And YOU should know better than to dig deeper!”

“You also just told me you could suspend your metabolism for… I dunno! Ever!”

“What?! I did NO SUCH THING you lying FILTH-liar!”

“Yes you did, you do it all the time! You say you won’t tell me anything and then you do!”

The alien scoffed and waved one hand dismissively. “Lieeeesss. Zim is no traitor.”

Dib clicked his tongue and then smiled wryly as a thought occurred to him. “Oh yeah? Do your Tallest still feel that way after you haven’t contacted them in ten years?”

Zim’s jaw dropped.

Nineteen more minutes. That’s how long Zim’s panic lasted, and this time Dib didn’t have the free time to count the minutes. He only knew because he happened to glance at a clock before and after the chaos.

Zim had barreled through Dib’s house shrieking and breaking things. He was searching for a computer—any computer at first— which he could use to contact his precious Tallest. But when he found one of Dib’s many and it didn't work, he began the futile hunt for a super computer. Dib didn’t have a supercomputer.

Yes, it was plausible for Dib to have one. His dad had many, both in his labs and in his home. But Dib simply hadn’t had need for one yet and even if he did, he wouldn’t have had the time to install it. He’d just moved in. His very last box had been unpacked the day he discovered Zim.

He tried to tell the alien but Zim just screamed over him.

By that point Zim’s screams were just screams. He wasn’t trying to convey any information except that he was upset.

Every time Dib came close to catching him, the alien used his PAK legs to climb up and around him. This always sent Dib into a state of frozen fear, even though it hadn’t been Zim that hurt him before. He kept reminding himself, but then he’d freeze up again when he saw the legs.

During one of those periods, while he was frozen, Zim’s screaming came to an abrupt stop.

Dib glanced at the clock, tallied up the time, and peered out the trashed living room at Zim.

The alien was still suspended in the air on his PAK legs with one arm extended towards the front door handle. But now it was his turn to be still. Dib watched the three-clawed green hand twitch. While he watched, Zim made no additional movement towards the handle.

Was he broken?

Dib supposed this was in his advantage. Maybe now he could slip away to grab his old alien-paralyzing cuffs or a normal old taser. He’d love to see if either of those had what it took to diminish the danger the alien presented to him and his brand new house.

✭ ✭ ✭

The rampage ended when it _ ingeniously _ occurred to Zim that Dib’s house wasn’t the only place in the whole world. He was sure could find a supercomputer elsewhere. Maybe even the next house over! But when the irken reached the door, he became still as a very bothersome thing occurred to him.

Apparently he’d been here in the Dib-stink’s house for five days. Aside from being a prisoner to a crazy person, he was safe. Debatably. For years now his smelly foe had threatened him with bodily harm, but at this point— and well, always—Zim could only roll his eyes. He knew the monkey-worm wouldn't do that autopsy thingy he was so keen on. He didn't have the fortitude in his squeedlyspooch for that. Maybe he could dissect a frog in class, but an irken? An elite irken invader as magnificent as Zim? Impossible.

With that Zim concluded that yes, he was at least _physically_ safe here. Mentally, he still wasn't too sure. The Dib was fiercely annoying.

Out there in the world waited his potentially-fatal mistake. Specifically, Zim realized he could face danger from the very thing he was hunting for: computers. Assuming the purpose behind his admittedly not-well-thought-out plan was a success, any computer Zim found could alert the only one he didn't want to use. His _own _computer.

The once-sassy machine could be looking for him.

When Zim finally drew back his hand, he noticed that it wasn't gloved. He looked down at his dangling green legs which weren't clad in his usual black leggings or boots either. The only thing on him was this atrocious little pastel pink garment.

"Huh?!" Zim exclaimed as heat gathered in his face. He tried to tug the weird cloth lower and tuck his legs into it to hide them. He had seen many humans in immodest clothes, but he was not human and he was not comfortable. A growl rose in his throat as his PAK turned him. It grew into a shriek of, "**STUPID** DIB-GREMLIN, YOU ALTERED ZIM'S ** _GARB?!_ ** So very HEINOUS will be the vengeance I enact on you when I— _ EERFRRFF!" _

For a split second he saw the quick approach of Dib-idiot's unreadable expression—Surprise? Fear? Well-contained malicious glee?—level with his own face even though Zim was suspended in the air by his robotic limbs.

The next second an icy-hot jolt caused Zim's little body to seize and collapse towards the floor, but instead he fell into darkness.

Zim woke to a _ suspicious _amount of comfort. He didn’t want to open his eyes to see the downsides.

Memories of all his recent revelations swirled painfully in his mind. Another kind of soreness swirled equally-painfully in his belly-skin. That must be where that wretched human roach shocked him after he decided not to escape him. Ugh, so ungrateful.

He thought of the almighty Tallest and all their waiting. Oh no, they were probably so bored and distraught without his frequent updates! What if Operation Impending Doom II was at a standstill for the past ten years? Zim saw no alternative. He was sure of it, his mistake had put the most important mission of the irken people on hold. Damn him.

He wondered how many rescue missions they’d sent out to find him by now. And would any check the Dib’s lab?

What if they weren’t finding him because they kept going to his base? Based on his understanding of what he’d mistakenly done to his technology, the base was a deathtrap to the people of Irk. Him included, but there were… complications. Very Zim-specific complications, ones he’d been dealing with ever since his PAK was fused to his spine as a freshly hatched smeet .

He wasn’t ready to think deeply about how he was alive just yet because it kind of hurt his pride. Sort of. Barely. Eh, not really. Zim’s pride was quite formidable, after all.

Despite these complications, it would be far too dangerous to waltz back to his base without a very _ ingenious _evil plan. Specifically one that wouldn’t backfire. Some small part of him understood that he had poor luck with such plans, but usually he could put a name to that poor luck: that disgusting Dib-thing.

That disgusting and _ tall _Dib-thing.

Zim grumbled and wormed his face deeper into the soft things that surrounded him. Perhaps they were pillows and blankets. There wasn’t even a hard surface below him this time, like that metal sheet. Everything was the perfect warmth too. So odd. The catch would be absolutely horrible; he knew it.

He kept squirming away from the intrusive thoughts about the Dib’s height. The human towered over him now, but for some reason Zim was reading this as good? Nooo, Zim couldn’t allow himself such dippy dummy thoughts.

He tried to force some sane ones instead.

Oh how _ cruuuueel _ of the universe to allow that _ rotten _Dib to get so very tall! It wasn’t fair at all! ...Better.

At least, Zim supposed, the sudden shock of the human leaving behind his tiny smeet body in what felt like a day was preferable to the torture of slowly being left behind by his nemesis. Of course, there was no way humans deserved such extraordinary height at all. It didn’t even make sense for creatures so vacant-headed to reach their respectable stature.

The Dib, at least, had proven to be a little different. Stupid and smelly and crazed as he was, he effectively got in the way of an elite irken soldier’s plans several times. This was incredible. And this is why Dib’s height was… good. Somewhat. Dib was Zim’s arch nemesis. His world once, and likely still did, revolve around the mighty Zim. As it should!

It left the shorter feeling a strange pride at having someone so tall dedicating all their time to him. Hm. Okay. Zim could now accept the Dib’s height.

Mental pep-talk accepted, Zim finally opened his eyes.

He was in the Dib-monkey’s lab again. He hadn’t been able to get past the passcoded thick white metal door so this room was safe from Zim’s earlier rampage, but things had still been moved around.

The human was nowhere to be seen.

The alien was trapped under some kind of thick glass dome. It was barely tall enough for Zim to stand up if he wanted to, and there was an equally-rounded glass door with a metal frame. In the door was what sort of looked like a one-way metal mailslot. How was any mailman supposed to bring him junk if he was in a passcoded lab? Stupid Dib.

The dome contained a round blow-up mattress piled with cozy blankets, duvets, pillows, and Zim himself. There was also a few bags of chips and soda cans in a stack near where Zim’s feet had been.

His feet! His bare irken feet, _ euughhhh… _ Zim frowned deeply at his medical-patient-gown thing. He felt naked without his invader uniform, and—

OH! **OH NO! ** When he glanced over his shoulder to check on his PAK—which was contained in some light metal contraption—he realized that this atrocious gown was _ backless?! _

Zim released an ear-and-antennae shattering shriek right as the _awful perverse_ Dib-lunatic entered the lab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> R.I.P. Dib's eardrums. Maybe that'll teach him not to be so fond of Zim's weird little voice anymore.


	4. Starguts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zim continues to be uncooperative even when being lowkey pampered.

Dib had fallen in love instantly.

It was kind of expensive, but he was sure it would be the perfect place to put some observations on Zim. On the back of the notebook was a chibi chupacabra. On the front was Mothman using a leash to walk it like any normal dog owner with any normal dog.

It kind of reminded him of Zim and GIR back in the day.

Speaking of the alien, he’d actually spotted this little notebook while out on a snack run for him.

It was a new day. Even if he still wasn’t sure Zim needed to eat every day, Dib figured he still should. And so here he was, returning home from a busy day at work in his father’s lab with two bags of junk food, the notebook, and a new flavor of Starguts coffee. Like the last one, the coffee still had over half a dozen extra shots of sweetening flavor just to be on the safe side.

His keys jangled as he closed the door behind him and looked around his still-messy house. The only thing he’d bothered to spruce up last night had been his personal lab.

Dib’s mood soured a little bit as he looked at the cracked picture frames, ripped up carpet, loose wood panels hanging from the walls and general disarray of books, shoes and furniture. He then looked down at the coffee he’d ordered.

The alien had _ really _liked that first coffee, even taking the time to savor it. Dib wasn’t sure why, but he had felt excitement earlier about treating Zim with another one… which was a little concerning, thinking on it now. On top of that, Dib didn’t understand why exactly he was rewarding the irken for destroying his house?

Hmm. Ah! He was just doing it for science, of course! Zim’s reaction to the first one might have been really amusing if Dib hadn’t succumbed to robot-leg PTSD panic. He wanted to be able to properly watch and notetake. Now he could do so in his brand new notebook.

His newly-salvaged good mood, along with everything in his hands crashed the the floor of his lab as soon as he punched in the code and stepped through the door.

Zim’s screech was nightmarishly shrill.

For the second time in two days Zim caused Dib to crumble against something; in this case the door frame. He clutched his ears as he doubled over. He wasn’t sure what came first: him going deaf, or the alien finally running out of air in his lungs to scream with. If he had lungs, that is. Dib doubted human-like lungs could survive Zim’s vocal habits long.

“MY BUTT! MY SUPERIOR BUTT!” It had been shouted, Dib was sure, but he could barely tell. He heard the ringing in his ears was much more clearly than the alien.

“H-how do your antennae _ not _hurt right now?!”

“Oh they do. I’m rather impressed with myself for that, actually. But THAT’S NOT THE POINT!”

Dib rubbed the side of his head. Zim had always been loud, but did his voice always carry _ this _much?

The alien was skittering around erratically, scratching at the glass with his claws, hurling popped or crushed bags of chips at the far—but still very close—walls of the dome, and hissing. “WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN LOOKING AT ZIM'S BUTT FOR, VULGAR HUMAN FILTH?!”

“I haven’t?!” Dib yelped back, confused.

_ “Liiiieees! _”

“Calm down, I don’t care about your stupid green butt!”

**“LIIIEES!”**

Dib’s cheeks started heating as he yelled, “WHY DO YOU THINK I’D GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOUR BUTT?!”

“YOU put Zim in this abominable SICKY GARB!” Zim gestured at his backless pink hospital gown, “For sicky huuumans so your health-professionals can look at their sicky butts and un-sick them!”

Dib blinked a few times. Then he let out a laugh.

"SO YOU ADMIT IT! DESPICABLE!"

Dib shook his head, "I didn't, but if I'd known it would upset you so much when I was younger, whew, I'd have tried my hardest to. You were in that thing when I found you.”

“YOU—wha?”

“I dunno, ask your robot minions why _ they _were looking at your butt. I haven’t looked at your butt once, not even for science.” Which would be the only reason Dib ever would. If he did. Which he wouldn’t. Organs, yes. Butt, no.

Zim seemed contemplative for a second, his eyes narrowing before he turned and released a drawn out hiss at the floor.

The warmth was still fading from Dib’s cheeks. He rubbed them a little, confused with himself. He’d… rarely ever been interested in people’s butts. And most _ definitely _not any alien butts.

The two shared an uneasy silence for a few moments before Dib returned his eyes to his destroyed notebook again and sighed. He could have put notes about Zim’s dislike of anyone examining his butt in there. Perhaps that was cultural? Maybe butts were an irken weakness he could use against Zim and The Massive should they ever escape the Florpus hole.

Zim had begun to bundle up blankets and pull them over himself. He cleared his throat. “So, big-headed-human—”

“How many times do we have to go over this, my head’s not—”

“Release Zim.”

“How many times do we have to go over that too…”

“You WILL release me or you’ll feel the burn of gubspach-eating maggots burrowing in through your _ EYYYE _ sockets!” The alien launched into drawn-out details of all the vengeful revenge he’d enact on Dib for trapping him. Dib stopped listening pretty much immediately.

Instead he gritted his teeth as he climbed back to his feet and surveyed the mess.

Several of the snacks had burst free of their containers. Puffy cheese chips lay in growing, gurgling pools of rootbeer. So did Dib’s brand new, would-be-perfect notebook. Somehow even more upsettingly, the Starguts coffee had landed upright and the lid kept all of the liquid contained. Ugh, just his sour, sour luck.

“Good thing you ripped up all the towels yesterday, Zim,” Dib uttered dejectedly to himself while Zim continued to rant. He turned and left to find _ something _to clean up the mess with. When the metal doors slid shut behind him, he felt a wave of relief at how quiet everything suddenly became.

“Okay, I’m back!” Dib announced when he re-entered his lab an hour later with towels he borrowed from his and his father’s workplace. “Now what’s your stinking problem?”

It was almost surprising to see everything as he’d left it. The snack mess was the same, his equipment was unharmed, and the dome was still in place. Zim had wrapped himself up in a little blanket burrito. He glared at Dib silently, but didn’t answer him.

Huh. Whatever. Dib could live with the silent treatment. Zim probably had no idea how much a younger Dib wished for such things on a daily basis. Older Dib was… a bit more complicated. Most likely he was very confused, but just a little part of him had been looking forward to hearing Zim explain himself using his _ normal speaking voice. _Which still wasn’t very normal but at least it didn’t usually blow out Dib’s eardrums.

The human sighed and got to work picking out the salvageable treats from the goo-ified ones.

There was a slight shuffling in the dome, which seemed oddly louder than it should be. When Dib looked up he saw that Zim had merely turned his blanketed back to him and was grumbling to himself. He heard the grumbles a bit too clearly.

“Ohhh. So it was the dome,” Dib remarked aloud.

The part of the blanket which covered Zim’s antennae shifted.

“It’s the perfect shape to amplify any sound made inside it. Ugh, what a mistake to put you in something like that.”

“It’s a mistake to trap Zim in_ anything!” _ the alien hissed.

“Knew the silent treatment wouldn’t last long.”

“You knew NO SUCH THING, earth pig! And for the record I am thinking. Do not flatter yourself, my silence has nothing to do with _ you. _”

“Whatever Zim.”

He tossed the last of the sludgy snacks into a waste bin and took the towels away to be washed. The lack of change was still surprising the second time he returned. Zim had now flopped to his side, still huddled in blankets. It seemed pointless to press Zim right now so Dib walked past the dome and got to work on his other studies about the alien.

While Zim had been unconscious after last night’s rampage and then tasing, Dib had taken some non-invasive samples. Zim’s skin didn’t seem to be flaky anywhere, at least not that Dib could find easily since he hadn’t wanted to risk waking him up searching. He’d settled on a cheek swab and a clipping from one of his claws. He’d tried to keep it very small with hopes that Zim wouldn’t notice. Hours later, Dib wondered why he even cared about Zim noticing or not. Zim was the enemy as well as his prisoner.

Both samples proved to be _ fascinating _under a microscope. Dib had only scratched the surface of each so that made him all the more excited for future tests.

He was jotting down the general shapes of the likely-extraterrestrial bacteria and then glanced up at the clock.

It was almost midnight.

When he glanced back at Zim, he saw that the alien was chewing some taffy and also nodding off. He’d take a bite and chew slower and slower as his form would begin to slouch. Then he would right himself with a start, alert for only a second before the process would begin again.

Interesting.

Dib could have sworn Zim bragged to him in the past about how irkens didn't need sleep. It had something to do with their PAKs, but he'd been vague. The other times Dib had seen Zim unconscious so far, he'd written off as a result of being chemically or forcefully knocked out, or of being starved to the point of fatigue. Maybe sleeping was optional for irkens and Zim was choosing to nod off rather than wait out a night of boredom. Or maybe Zim had simply lied about not needing sleep to a young Dib to intimidate him.

Regardless, Dib felt his expression soften a little as he watched Zim's eyelids droop.

Dib put away his equipment without a word.

Zim grunted once when he noticed Dib's movement, but continued his chewing and the drifting process after deeming whatever Dib was up to uninteresting. 

Once Dib was ready, he went to the lightswitch and paused upon noticing the lukewarm Starguts coffee on the counter. He felt a little nip of guilt that he’d forgotten to give it to the alien, but he knew he shouldn’t have. Zim was only a nuisance and a threat and should be treated like one… or so he _ tried _ to remind himself.

He ended up setting the cold coffee in the dome through its item-slot. When Zim woke he could decide for himself if he wanted it.

The invader had just succumbed to sleep. He was still somewhat vertical but gravity was pulling his green head closer and closer to the air mattress he sat on. Right when Dib reached the door and turned off the light, he heard the soft _ pmfft _ of Zim literally falling asleep.

Dib immediately tried to analyze the unwanted smile that touched his face.

Dib woke the next morning from a very unfortunate nonsensical dream about butts, including alien butts. Not necessarily Zim’s, but Zim’s was the alien butt he saw the most so he just _ assumed _… He groaned about it repeatedly throughout his day because the imagery just wanted to haunt and humiliate him.

When he got home from work, he was reluctant to enter his lab. For the most part he was on edge about being screamed at some more. But he was also wary of enduring another conversation that could cause him some kind of traumatic dream. Instead, when he opened the door to his lab he was greeted with:

“Pig-Smelly! Zim has an important demand.”

Dib let out a laugh as he approached the dome, leaned over it and snickered, “Y_ou _ don’t get to make any demands.”

“An _ important _demand,” The alien repeated. He was pacing in the dome, still wrapped up in a blanket burrito. He glanced up at Dib once but then his head snapped away, seemingly upset by the way Dib could now loom over him.

Knowing Zim, this “important demand” could be about germs or the Tallest or a guise for some insult Dib would walk right into. “Nuh-uh, Zim. Today I’ve got a lot of questions to ask you and you’re _ going _to answer them.”

“You know I won't," Zim smirked.

Maybe not willingly, but Dib had yet to try alternative methods of coaxing the answers out of his hairless green lab rat. Now that he had his own lab he had access to many more tools than he usually did, and was eager to put them to—

Wait, was that the coffee cup?

One of Zim's clawed hands clutched the blanket firmly. But the other was holding a flattened cardboard tube to his chest. It had the Starguts insignia, and under that his misspelled name, “Dab”. Ugh, why did barristas always get such a kick out of that one? They had to be doing it on purpose at this point.

For some odd reason seeing Zim holding the cardboard made Dib feel proud. But why? He hadn't even gotten to take notes.

Dib glanced at all the other snacks he'd left in the tube. Aside from a little bit of those taffies he'd spotted Zim eating last night, the other snacks were untouched. He'd watched Zim gorge down at least half his own weight one day, and now the alien was barely eating anything? Dib rapped his fingers against the glass once, wondering if Zim’s feast was a result of his starvation and if irkens usually didn't need much, or if Zim was now rebelling by starving himself again.

"Hey!" the irken barked, "You aren't listening are you? Unclog your gooey listening-holes, sweat-swine!"

That was a new one.

"Besides, this mission might answer your questions a lot better than I. That accursed '_ red-out' _ or whatever confounds me too," he gritted out, obviously struggling to admit there were things he didn't know. "And I won't answer any of your questions anyways until I am SUFFICIENTLY COMFORTABLE and _ FREE _ of all cages and rest _ raiiints _."

"Hold up, I missed something, what's this about the red-out?"

Zim looked at him with disgust. "How your species developed any languages at all with those kloopel-sized brains astounds me, so I'm not too surprised you can't speak them."

Dib frowned, completely forgetting his coffee cup musings. "Spit it out, alien scum."

Zim's disgust deepened. "I’ll make you paaay for keeping me in this glass bubble-thingy someday soon, hideous Dib-mongrel. But for now, I need you to...” He trailed off and grumbled to himself about how he couldn't believe what he was about to say, but because of the noise-amplifying of the dome Dib caught it. After a moment he sighed, "I need you to go to my base."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in ep 1 there's an irken sleeping on a couch, so for this fic I think i'm opting towards sleep being a choice thing for most irken. Sleep is great I wouldn't give it up completely even if I could. ;v;


End file.
